Editorial | Designer | Issue 6
Why I Have InsomniaIssue 6, 17/11/2015, Robert O'SullivanIt’s not usual to have an editorial in the middle of the paper, but this is a situation that requires some unusual things. I asked Brian, the Editor, for this space to discuss the letter on the page opposite.You may well have read this before. This letter we published on our website last week. It garned some amount of attention, and was even covered by the Irish Examiner (although I have serious issues with that article). We received this at 4am one day last week. I have insomnia, frequently going two to three days on-the-trott without sleep. This day I was at the end of the three days being awake, decided to schedule the Facebook posts for the Express, check my emails then go to sleep. Insomnia, or even sleeplessness, if you’ve not had it before, is not a fun experience; but I will be forever thankful for insomnia because, if not for it, I don’t think I’d ever be able to forgive myself. Through our online submission portal we received the letter opposite with a few notes for its publication, one of which will haunt me forever:
“Can you please publish this as soon as possible i might not be alive when this is up, just want to get this off my chest before i go”
We got some criticism for publishing that article as is, that it wasn’t a helpful message to put out there on Mental Health Week, but I honestly don’t care about any of them; even after talking to the student for hours (from about 4am until 8:30) and they seemed genuinely better, I was publishing this article no matter what.I mentioned the Irish Examiner article earlier. I didn’t like that article because it took one point and made it the headline, about the UCC Health Centre. That’s not, from talking to the person over emails, what this was about. I know from experience that the Health Centre & Counselling Service are ran by wonderful people, but frankly they’re drastically underfunded and are put under intense pressure to cut costs repeatedly. And it’s not good enough.But here’s to another statue of George Boole.This editorial was written in response to the submission & publication of this article.